I went back to L’Artusi last night. Just as good as the first time, still slammin’.

Thai Heaven in Queens.

Took the trek last Friday night and it was as good as ever.

Dough! Oh My…DOUGH!

DOUGH Donuts: A Far Cry From The Old Fashioned from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Frank Bruni reviews Gabrielle Hamilton’s new memoir:

After much anticipation, the inevitable memoir has arrived. “Blood, Bones and Butter” traces nearly all of Hamilton’s life and career, from an unmoored childhood through her triumph at Prune, which didn’t end the search for a sense of place and peace that is the overarching theme of this autobiography, as of so many others. It’s a story of hungers specific and vague, conquered and unappeasable, and what it lacks in urgency (and even, on occasion, forthrightness) it makes up for in the shimmer of Hamilton’s best writing.

Recalling her mother’s penchant for heavy eyeliner, she flashes back to “the smell of the sulfur every morning as she lit a match to warm the tip of her black wax pencil.” Hamilton invokes the “voluptuous blanket of summer night humidity,” captures the tantalizing promise of delicate ravioli by observing that “you could see the herbs and the ricotta through the dough, like a woman behind a shower curtain,” and compares breast feeding to being cannibalized, “not in huge monster-gore chunks, but like a legion of soft, benign caterpillars makes lace of a leaf.”

The description of the ravioli is great. I’ve never been to Hamilton’s restaurant, Prune, but it sounds tempting.

Best Pizza is reviewed in the Times:

Most garlic knots let you down. After one or two salty, satisfying bites, you’re left to chew on the increasingly impenetrable thing like a masticating cow. It’s a snack food for suckers and optimists, anybody with a Charlie Brown-like faith that maybe Lucy Van Pelt won’t pull away the football, that this time it might be great.

The garlic knots ($3 for six) at Best Pizza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, deliver on that hope. Baked in a century-old brick oven, they arrive charred on top and creamy inside, more gougère than repurposed crust. There are no tricks, just good technique: dough that rises all day; a drizzle of garlic oil after the knots come out of the oven; a dusting of shaved pecorino; chopped parsley, because that’s what you do. The knots are served on a flimsy paper plate with pickled vegetables (fennel, mostly) because Best Pizza is a slice joint, where $3 will feed you, and $15 will pay for a feast.

The good–it looks damn tasty, the bad, it’s in Williamsburg. But if you happen to find yourself in Hipster Dufus Heaven, looks like it is worth checking out.

[Photo Credit: Brooklyn 365]

Brunch at Tipsy Parson in Manhattan.

Fabulous fatness. Mmm, mmm, good.

Say it ain’t so…

[Photo Credit: Radaris, Nabok]

Serious Eats gives us the best oatmeal in New York.

Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever ordered oatmeal at a restaurant, but after checking out this slideshow I might have to give it a go…

Thank you, once again, Serious Eats.

I went to Fatty Crab for the first time last week. My brother and I hit the Upper West Side version and we really enjoyed the food. But our waiter was overbearing–sell!, sell!, sell!–and the food was not cheap.

Then, a few nights ago, I had dinner at  Lotus of Siam, the new Thai place on 5th Avenue just off 9th Street. I went with a pal and we arrived early, at 6:00. The host snarled when we told him that we didn’t have a reservation.

“Did that guy just snarl at us?” I said to my friend. “The dining room is half-empty and he”

It was a chilly way to start the evening. Then our waitress…oh, the waitress. “She’s young,” my pal said. I tried to sympathize even though she was either overwhelmed or simply not especially interested in her job. But at $26 an entree, man, I want the service to be welcoming, informative, at least competent. I can deal with rude, like if an old Jewish waiter spills soup on you and then balls you out, but aloof, I can’t abide.

The food was yummy but the portions were small and it was not cheap. Worst of all, I didn’t leave the place feeling happy. I left longing for SriPraPhai in Queens, for a place where the food is great, the prices reasonable and the atmosphere something less than smug.

For an old-fashioned, no-frills treat, stop by the Donut Pub next time you are on 14th street. Their Boston Creme rules:

[Photo Credit: Juozas Cernius and robobby]

Deep in the heart of hipster Brooklyn you will find the Mile End Deli–Montreal Pastrami, go figure. I’ve heard mixed things about the place but I had one of their pastrami-on-rye sandwiches and thought it crazy tasty. Well worth the trip, man.

[Photo Credit: Smooth Dude]

The wife and I took a ride up to Port Chester this afternoon to check out the Mario Batali-Joe Bastianich food jernt, the Tarry Market.

Nice place. Not cheap, but no surprise there, right?

Then we stopped in for a bite next door at the Tarry Lodge:

Artichokes with mint.

Pizza with Guanciale, black truffles and a fried egg. Ka-Boom.

Dig this most wonderful piece on the roots of the Deli over at Saveur.

[Photo Credit: Bags]

Dig this long, engaging profile of April Bloomfield in the New Yorker.

[Photo Credit: The Lunch Break Chronicles]

Frank Bruni on eating in the City of Angels:

Sure, New York also has a bit of everything, or rather a lot of everything. But its crowdedness and competitiveness make it the Everest to L.A.’s Kilimanjaro: you practically need a Sherpa to tackle New York effectively, and you just might lose a digit or limb. L.A. is more reasonably scaled, with the newest, hottest restaurants less likely to book up a solid month in advance. When a friend and I dropped in — at the height of lunch hour, no less — to one of the four branches of Umami Burger, the cult favorite of the city’s ground-beef set, we were seated immediately, in comfy chairs at a big table that could have accommodated four. In contrast, almost any mealtime visit to any location of New York’s Shake Shack involves a significant stretch of time — 20 minutes isn’t exceptional — on a serpentine line. That’s for counter service. At Umami, someone actually waits on you.

The Umami story demonstrates the enterprise and speed with which L.A.’s restaurateurs are tackling trends. When Adam Fleischman, its principal owner, opened the first Umami in Mid-Wilshire in January 2009, he was entering an arena brimming with competitors, each with fanatical adherents. There was Father’s Office, with its unyielding commandment that arugula and caramelized onions should dress every patty. There was 8 oz. Burger Bar, which permitted free will. And there was of course In-N-Out, less restaurant than fast-food franchise but perhaps the earliest architect of the bridge between McDonald’s and self-regarding gourmands.

Fleischman had a hook that sagely took into account the self-consciously erudite posturing of so many food enthusiasts today. ‘‘I wanted to do something with umami,’’ he says, referring to the so-called fifth taste (after sweet, salty, sour and bitter), which is vaguely described as ‘‘savoriness’’ and until recent years wasn’t universally accepted as an actual, definable trait. So each of the burgers at Umami is constructed with an emphasis on ingredients thought to be catalysts for umami. The caramelized onions on the signature burger are seasoned with star anise ‘‘because it’s an umami booster,’’ Fleischman says. The burger is also dressed with sautéed shiitake mushrooms, Parmesan cheese and oven-dried tomatoes, all thought to be umami bombs.

We Love L.A.!

[Photo Credit: Alex Eats World, Signature L.A. Direct]

Yes, we have no pastrami…

Hill Country Fried Chicken…it’s on my to-chow list for sure.

Nah, I haven’t been to Four and Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn yet.

But I aim to change that in the near future.

Two cool NYC food cats:

A week from today the season could be over or the Yanks could be getting ready to play in another Whirled Serious.

We’re lucky to even have another week to look forward to, and starting tomorrow night, Cliff Lee vs. Andy Pettitte…it should be lively.

In the meantime, enjoy a lovely, cool fall day in New York. Those of us with Cablevision are shut-out of the first game, but the Jets are on at 4.

Let’s Go Sun-Day.